CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom — In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg solemnly pledged to safeguard user data. “And if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you.”

Last month, when 50 million accounts were hacked, Zuckerberg failed his own test. Curiously, talks of curtailing the hallowed privilege are gone from his public remarks. Nevertheless, the current situation is untenable. It’s time to start talking about nationalizing Facebook and platforms like it.

Social networks have become part of our critical infrastructure. The data they contain have been used to influence elections. Targeted advertisements have created virtual social bubbles that beguile us into consuming news reinforcing — rather than challenging — our biases, contributing to a polarized political climate.

And yet we know that social networks also have enormous potential as tools for civic engagement, social cohesion and direct democracy. During the Arab Spring, young people challenged censorship and authority by communicating through social media to bypass crackdowns on freedom of expression.

The only way to rein in Facebook — and allow people to harness it for good rather than to hack elections and disrupt democratic processes — is to take it out of the hands of people like Zuckerberg.

Data is the new oil, and Facebook is sitting on a gusher: the likes, inclinations, and preferences of more than 2 billion people worldwide.

Facebook’s core business model is simple: exploit user data. We’ve known this since 2004, when Zuckerberg affectionately referred to users as “dumb f**ks” for entrusting him with their information.

Data is the new oil, and Facebook is sitting on a gusher: the likes, inclinations, and preferences of more than 2 billion people worldwide. Tapping into this well relies on constantly increasing users and engagements, churning out precious data to sell to advertisers, privacy concerns be damned.

And why should it worry? Despite all the hubbub about the recent stock market crash, the social media giant generated $13.2 billion in revenue last quarter — a 42 percent increase over the same period the previous year. Profits, too, jumped 31 percent to $5.1 billion.

The question is whether we can muster the political will to challenge Silicon Valley, and hold its leaders to their own promises.

We shouldn’t then be surprised by just how laughable Facebook’s attempts at self-regulation have been. By its very design, it has little incentive to change — it’s a money-making machine.

But as crucial elections loom over both Europe and the U.S., it’s becoming increasingly urgent that our data is properly safeguarded from undue influence and interference.

Facebook’s former chief security officer, Alex Stamos, has already said the U.S. midterm elections cannot be protected from foreign hacking, and that shielding future elections from similar problems will require increased governmental regulation.

But if we can admit platforms like Facebook are critically important to our security, we need to be bolder, and that means taking public control.

Establishing new public social media, or transforming Facebook into an independent, non-partisan entity similar to the BBC, would maintain the benefits of social networks, while shielding our data from commercial and political interests.

Over a third of people in the U.K., U.S., Germany and France now turn to social media for news. The percentage is even greater among younger people. The broadcasting landscape is changing and our societies urgently need to adapt.

One way to do so would be for countries to develop their own public or nonprofit social media organizations. Following U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s proposal, the European Union should take the lead and coordinate the efforts of its member states to create a “European Digital Corporation.”

A combination of existing policy tools — heavily taxing private social media companies, for example, and banning targeted advertisement and the use of personal information for commercial gain — would softly sentence Facebook to death. Especially if they are combined with new, high-quality public social media alternatives.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Another possibility would be to simply nationalize existing social media firms. Even in the Land of Free Markets, nationalizations are not uncommon. As recently as 2008 — at the height of the financial crisis — the Obama and Bush administrations took public control of banks, mortgage companies, automotive industries. In Britain and continental Europe too, the late 1940s saw widespread nationalizations.

Clearly, we know how to do it, and social media regulation is arguably becoming a matter of national security.

It’s important however that public social media organizations be rapidly withdrawn from direct governmental control and made to coordinate their efforts across national boundaries. This is crucial. Nobody wants a U.S. President Donald Trump or British blowhard Boris Johnson in control of your social media feed — and the point of much of social media is to communicate across national boundaries.

This is not a remote possibility. The tools exist. A blueprint is ready. The question is whether we can muster the political will to challenge Silicon Valley, and hold its leaders to their own promises.

Gianmarco Raddi is an MD/PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and UCLA medical school (@gianmarcoraddi)

Related stories on these topics:

Trisul Kiboko

There’s a whole world out there between “self-regulation” and “nationalisation”, we need to use that. The role of government is to regulate, not running high tech companies, something it knows not how to do.

Posted on 10/10/18 | 8:44 AM CET

Sean .

Government bodies are also pretty poor at keeping data secure and appalling at innovation.

A government run Facebook would wither and die.

Posted on 10/10/18 | 9:27 AM CET

Nathan Kennedy

Because nationalised industries were always so well run? Not to mention, does the writer really think that voters would trust a government run social media firm? They don’t trust governments to run themselves, let alone the media meant to be a check and balance on those governments!

Posted on 10/10/18 | 10:10 AM CET

Dr Orthogonal

As far as I can tell following talking to friends and relatives (I don’t use it myself) Facebook is very uncool and no young people are using it any more. It seems to be just grumpy middle aged people now. The answer is simple – just Facexit.

Posted on 10/10/18 | 10:47 AM CET

GE0RG1 G10RG1

GE0RG1 … OBSERVE THE BULGARIAN FISCAL RESERVE NOT TO GIVEN TO AUSTRIAN BANKS IN BULGARIA OR OTHER FOREIGN BANKS TO COVER EXCESSIVE RISKS AND LEVERAGE THEY TOOK WITH EU QUANTITATIVE EASING , THE SAME FOR BALKANS , CEE , BALTICS IN NEXT MOTHS – OBSERVE FOR STRANGE INCIDENTS . CHECK CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY CEU STUDENTS AND ALUMNI, PROFESSORS , MANY OF WHOM ARE CIA AGENTS FROM THE TIME IN CEU WITH IMPLANTS FOR MIND CONTROL. ORBAN FROM CEU IS PLAYING THEATER TO SEND CEU AWAY FROM HUNGARY , BABIC IS ALSO CLOSE TO EU , BASICALLY HUNGARY , POLAND , CZECH , OTHER CEE , BALKANS , BALTIC GOVERNMENTS ARE AGENTS TO USA AND EU WITH MIND CONTROL AND SECRET SOCIETIES ON TELECOMS NETWORKS AND TETRA NET. WHY AFTER ELECTIONS WON AGAINST EU , POLITICIANS FROM GREECE, HUNGARY , CZECH , POLAND , ITALY TURN THEIR POSITION TOWARDS EU? ARE THEY CONTROLLED BY GERMANY , FRANCE ? . OBSERVE FOR INCIDENTS IN ITALY , SPAIN , PORTUGAL , GREECE AS TARGET 2 DIFFICULT DEBT HOLDERS OF GERMANY. PUBLIC ATTENTION ON CATASTROPHES , POLITICIAN FAMILY INCIDENTS TO PRESERVE DEMOCRACY. THINK WHAT MENTIONED COUNTRIES DEBT BECOMES WITH TARGET 2 DEBTS , MAINLY FROM GERMANY 0.91 TRILLIONS TO SUBSTITUTE LEAVING DEPOSITS. BIG NON GUARANTEED DEPOSITS IN IT , ES ,PT, GR , DE WILL LEAVE NOT PAY THE LOSS OF REFINANCING EXPENSIVELY BANKS. ONLY DEMOCRATIC NEW GOVERNMENTS IN DE, IT , ES CAN WIN BACK THE TRUST AND RETURN DEPOSITS IN BANKS FINANCED BY TARGET 2 , NOT CATASTROPHES AND FEAR IN GOVERNMENTS. GERMANY SIMILAR TO FRANCE MAY PUT ALL POLITICAL SYSTEM BEHIND SINGLE GOVERNMENT VS THE POPULISTS TO STEAL SOME TIME BEFORE END OF EU. WITH HIGH DEBT IN EU AND USA, SIMILAR TO SERBIA SOME STATES CAN SEPARATE WITHOUT THE HUGE SOVEREIGN DEBT BURDEN , SEE CATALONIA AND SOMEHOW ITALY PROVINCES. HIGH SOVEREIGN DEBT IS HUGE RISK FOR UNIONS AS EU , USA TO STAY TOGETHER. COUNTRIES WITH OWN CURRENCY , ALSO COME BACK TO GROWTH AFTER SOVEREIGN DEBT DEFAULT YOU MAY CHECK FOR ESTABLISH FACT. SO ITALY WILL PROBABLY LEAVE EUROZONE TO ACHIEVE ECONOMIC GROWTH , NOT TO SUFFER 10 YEARS AS GREECE. SO EU , USA MAY GAIN LESS DEBT AND OWN CURRENCY IF FALL APART AND KEEP ECONOMIC GROWTH IN COMING SECULAR RECESSION THAT MAKES POPULATION SKEPTICAL FOR ECONOMY OF UNIONS IN GALLUP SURVEY. AS ONE ARGENTINA FINANCIAL MINSTER SAYS IF YOU LEAVE ONE DOOR OF STABLE OPEN ALL HORSES ARE OUT MORNING. POLITICAL SYSTEMS GAMBLE IN USA EU , FR DE UK IT ES PUT COMPLETE POLITICAL SYSTEM VS POPULISTS AS NOBODY TRUST THE GOVERNMENTS TODAY SIMILAR TO JOHN LAW A FRENCH FINANCE MINISTER THAT CLAIMED THAT HIS COMPANY CONNECTED WITH THE COUNTRY HAS BUILD HUGE PROJECT IN THE FIELDS OF MISSISSIPPI ,

Posted on 10/10/18 | 11:53 AM CET

GE0RG1 G10RG1

YELLEN , TRUMP, DRAGHI , JUNCKER BLUFF THERE IS VERY STRONG GROWTH IN US , EU. When revealed that there are no projects in Mississippi , John Law escapes from France where the share bubble ends. Many finance minsters in Europe had similar sad destiny, do you remember also how Ceausescu run and Milosevic was hidden in a kindergarden. the political situation in usa and eu is that many presidents and ministers , central banker are determined to be the worst ever. This is true for USA Trump president and Yellen fed head from cnbc survey as the lowest grade chairman. The French president approval declined at lowest place compared to all recent presidents , with similar situation in UK , Germany , Italy Spain, ECB , EC. Many of them stay to be blamed when deposit rationing is imposed in EU and the share bubble ends in USA to steal your deposits and savings reciprocally in EU and USA. Many politicians are supported by several political parties that puts the complete current political systems against populists as in France example. wiki Populism is a mode of political communication that is based on contrasts between the “common man” or “the people” and a real or imagined group of “privileged elites”, traditionally scapegoating or making a folk devil of the latter. Populists can fall anywhere on the traditional left–right political spectrum of politics, and often portray both bourgeois capitalists and socialist organizers as unfairly dominating the political sphere. Populism is most common in democratic nations. Political scientist Cas Mudde wrote that ” that populism is inherent to representative democracy; after all, do populists not juxtapose ‘the pure people’ against ‘ corrupt elite. I DO NOT HAVE COPY RIGHTS SO DISTRIBUTE IN EU ON LINE EDITIONS CAREFULLY. ASK MERKEL , TRUMP , POWELL , DRAGHI IF THEY ARE RELATED TO THE FIRES IN GREECE FOR THEIR DEBTS , OR THE TRAIN CRASH IN TURKEY AT THE DAY ERDOGAN STEPS IN? DO THEY INTEND TO HARM BULGARIA FOR MY WRITINGS ?

Posted on 10/10/18 | 11:54 AM CET

GE0RG1 G10RG1

GE0RG1 . .. ASK DRAGHI , WIEDEMANN , CONSTANCIO, COEURE WHY THEY REJECTED MY PROPOSAL TO PUT DEPOSIT RATIONING IN EU 2 ,3 YEARS AGO. THERE WERE SOME TRILLION LOSSES AND THEY DECIDED THEIR FRIENDS TO DRAW COMPLETE DEPOSITS AND THE REST TO COVE THE TRILLION LOSS. SINCE THEN ONE TRILLION LEFT ITALY AND SPAIN AND ANOTHER TRILLION GERMANY OF BIG NON GUARANTEED DEPOSITS AND CONTINUE TO LEAVE. ITALY DEBT IS SO HIGH THAT SMALL DEPOSITS ARE BARELY GUARANTEED NOW SOME 160% /GDP. TO REFINANCE 2 TRILLIONS FOR SPECULATIVE RATING BONDS FOR 10 YEARS IS 2 TRILLION COST , SO NOW THERE IS IN EU BANKS 3 TRILLION LOSS. THE PRICES OF BANKS ARE FOR 20 BN THAT IS 10 Y EXPECTED PROFITS 20BN VS 10 YEAR EXPECTED LOSS OF 300 BN. DRAGHI AND FRIENDS WITH YELLEN AND POWELL DECIDED THEN TO RISK FOR BUBBLE ON STOCKS IN USA AND EU TO SELL YOU STOCKS THAT IS OVER AS ILLUSION. DRAGHI INVENTED CANCER FOR MY MOTHER AND SCHIZOPHRENIA FOR ME THAT HAS TO BE CANCELED AS DIAGNOSES.

Posted on 10/10/18 | 11:54 AM CET

GE0RG1 G10RG1

GE0RG1 . . . EU , ECB BY SYSTEMS , INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IMF, WB , UN
– TARGET2 IDEA TO INCREASE TO 1 TRILLION IS FROM GERMANY THAT WAS PROMISED MONEY BU USA IF THERE ARE NO SCHOCKS IN EU , STOCK BUBBLE TO PERSIST, SO GERMANY SHOULD PAY FOR SEVERAL HUNDRED BN. INVESTIGATE IF ECB PRINTED HIDDEN ILLEGAL A TRILLION OR MORE TO GIVE GERMANY FOR DEPOSITS LEFT THERE.
– EU CREATED FOR CARTELS BY BANKS AND TELECOMS. MIND CONTROL A LOT OF POLITICIANS IN EU AND CEE
– MAY INCREASE EITHER CURRENCY OF FORINT AS IN HUNGARY OR INTEREST RATE DIFFERENTIAL IN REST OF CEE THAT STOPPED GROWTH AND CREATED BAD CREDITS
– CENTRAL CONTROL ONLY FOR MAIN SHOCKS IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS THAT ARE 5, 6 . THE REST OF CONTROL IS LOCAL BY SYSTEMS
– EVERY COUNTRY IS SOVEREIGN SYSTEM
– INDEPENDENT BY COUNTRY MONETARY POLICY IS ALSO MORE APPROPRIATE WITH SUCH DIFFERENCES IN GROWTH , LEVEL , DEBT , BANK STABILITY. BY INDIVIDUAL SYSTEMS.
– CAREFULLY BALKANS ,CEE NOT TO TRANSFER BUDGET MONEY TO FOREIGN BANKS. INVESTIGATE BULGARIA, HIGH BUDGET DEFICITS IN SERBIA AND CROATIA AND OTHERS AS WELL.

– CARTELS IN CENTRAL CONTROL ORGANIZED COERCIVE STRUCTURE LEADS TO BIG CRASHES FROM THE BALANCES OF AGENTS ALL BIASED IN ONE DIRECTION OF FED ECB LED CARTEL
EU is created with DNA to support cartels in banks , telecoms , big business with common controlled systems. EU ,if diversified, by currency policy , asset balances will be more adaptive . Correct control is local of complex systems that mostly represent individual countries. Organization over all EU is hidden coercive , masked as bureaucratic that means fascism in Italian , to avoid chaos. EU only avoids crash with wasted buffers to avoid dis balances and shocks as QE , TARGET 2. There must be currency board to gold , next to 3 % budget board, EU to survive. EU to be diversified and adaptive , to avoid straight crash but to enjoy creative destruction in innovation and growth must be with separate control of major systems.

Posted on 10/10/18 | 11:55 AM CET

Tony Browne

As dr o says, just facexit. You surely all have better things to do?

As for the govt nationalising it and bringing all the bits of information they hold on you together in one place? Who would want that?

Posted on 10/10/18 | 1:15 PM CET

Peter Monta

I know when I want to make a policy decisions with very dangerous consequences I always like to consult a person with no expertise whatsoever on the subject. In this case that would be a med student. So nationalize social media and then government appointees an decide what is appropriate content or opinion? What could possibly go wrong with that?

Posted on 10/10/18 | 3:12 PM CET

Andrija Stupar

It’ll never work. Neither of the proposals.

Proposal #1 is to establish state-owned social networks. The problem with Facebook is not that no new social networks have been established. Fledgling social networks are a dime a dozen. The problem is that no one will go to a social network if nobody’s there. It’s a catch 22. Facebook was an early enough entrant to avoid that, and provided a compelling enough experience to attract and keep people. Now a lot of them are there just by inertia. Google, btw, just announced they were shutting down their own social network, Google+, after 7 years. Yes the immediate excuse was a security breach but even Google said that basically, despite their best efforts, very little people used it. So it’s easier to just shut down rather than fix it. So Google can’t get people off of Facebook and onto their own platform, but a diverse array of governments will?

Also, the point of Facebook is that it’s (semi-)global. At least in the West, it’s the international social network. You can connect with people from France, Canada, Belgium, Estonia, Poland, the US, Mexico, Argentina, Australia….whatever. Even if the EU does a joint social network, people will not like having to be on the European Public Social Platform if they want to talk to people from the EU and the American Public Social Platform if they want to talk to people from the US, and so on. The network effect is lost.

Which brings me to the next point: one government will not like most of its citizens on another government’s platform. I’m more concerned about the misuse of data by government security agencies than by Facebook’s advertising clients. The NSA was able to infiltrate most US tech companies, China’s PLA has infiltrated the global computer hardware supply chain…now imagine social platforms directly set up and run by the American and Chinese governments. Thanks but no thanks.

Proposal #2 is to nationalize Facebook. OK, who will nationalize Facebook? The US government? Other countries, with millions of users on Facebook, won’t like that (see above). So, we set up a UN committee and different countries own it? How do we divide it up? I can see a huge fight going on right there. Also how to split the bill? Nationalizing a bankrupt bank is one thing; buying off a profitable business with a $450B market cap is another.

We need effective regulation of companies like Facebook. Most governments have caught on to the need to protect people’s data; so regulations like the GDPR are being created. The public has been a bit slower to catch on, but it is catching on. Now, there is a limit to such regulation of course.

So, Facebook (and similar platforms that run on the same principle: “free” services in exchange for access to data) will continue, and will either adapt, and the regulations will work, or it will progressively go through a series of blunders, scandals and disasters that will destroy it (users leaving, lawsuits, maybe mandated shutdowns/bans in some countries). It will then be replaced by something else, a different technology operating on a different business model. Maybe something akin to the stuff that Tim Berners-Lee is pushing now (“Solid”).

Posted on 10/10/18 | 5:16 PM CET

edel .

Finally someone that knows the repercussion of a handful of companies handling so much power in the world!

Now, nationalizing, while eliminates some of the big concerns like “national security”, it is wrong headed though; there is no need for such a concentration of private data by anyone, private company or government.

Ideally, people should know what they are giving up but using these services, but as with vaccines, it is not enough relying in the willingness of people of protecting themselves, but government should create strong regulation on what it is given up.

An alternative, an probably even more plausible, is taking the opposite route, forcing open up all the information collected; the problem is not the data per se, but the selective usage of data by a few of targeted toward a few.

Posted on 10/11/18 | 3:13 AM CET

Ghost of JB

Actually the author’s suggested solution, to nationalise Facebook, would resolve the issues around the size of data breaches (how many users are affected) and worsen the frequency of data breaches.

It would achieve this by destroying Facebook, making it no longer attractive to users by replacing its creativity with ill-thought out development that would be over cost, run far behind schedule, respond only slowly to user demand, make user data available to the state, reduce investment making it slow and unresponsive as well as running on old unsupported hardware and software platforms, and introducing careful vetting of all posts with automatic warnings for breaching government guidelines.

Facebook would collapse, and the next thing would be born from its ashes… just not in the EU, again.